


Rapid Seduction for the Clueless Commander

by mehramilo



Series: Rapid Seduction [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Awkward Flirting, Background Relationships, Bad Flirting, Bad Jokes, Bad Pick-Up Lines, F/M, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Romantic Fluff, Satire, Virgin Shaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 01:52:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13225677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mehramilo/pseuds/mehramilo
Summary: During a drunken game of "Never Have I Ever," Cullen reveals his most shameful secret. Dorian and Blackwall embark on a quest to teach the clueless commander the art of seduction.





	Rapid Seduction for the Clueless Commander

“And here we are,” Dorian said, taking the last of the tankards from the innkeep’s tray and setting it on the table before him with a thunk. “Now we can get started.”

Cullen folded his arms across his chest and settled back in his seat. “I said I don’t want to play.”

“It’s easy,” Sera said, snatching her cup of wine from across the table. “Besides, you laced-up lot always wind up drinking to the dirtiest stuff.”

Blackwall wiped a line of foam from his beard with the back of his sleeve and laughed. “If anyone’s getting into trouble with this game, it’s you, Sera. Half of the stories you tell start with your hand up a—”

“Not playing yet.” Sera held up a single finger, motioning for silence as she slurped from her cup. “That one was just for fun.”

“Really,” Cullen said, bracing his hands against the tabletop as if to stand, “I should be getting back. There’s still much to be done before we head to the Winter Palace.”

“Come now—” Dorian pressed a hand to Cullen’s shoulder, easing him back into his seat “—you’ve only just arrived. What could possibly be so urgent as to need your attention at this hour? The rest of the castle is asleep.”

Cullen’s eyes darted to the side and back again. “Maps,” he said finally.

“‘Maps?’”

“Yes — I mean, battle plans.” A sheen of sweat glistened on the commander’s brow in the torchlight. “Reviewing supply lines and the like.”

Dorian laughed and pressed a cold tankard into the man’s pliant fingers. “A valiant attempt, but I don’t buy it. One round, then you may return to polishing your sword or whatever it is you do alone in that tower all day. Do we have a deal?”

“I don’t know….”

“You’ll learn all sorts of wicked secrets about us; I’m sure the Inquisitor would love to hear all the details.” Dorian flashed a wolfish grin. “Imagine: you could call her into your room, alone, and whisper such _scandalous_ stories to her. It might even make her clutch her pearls—or yours,” he added with a wink.

“You’re safe with these two, besides,” said Blackwall, jabbing a finger towards the mage and the elf. “They’ll have to drink to just about anything. Watch: Never have I ever made it with a wench in this tavern.”

“Oh, for—” Sera tipped back her glass again and chugged.

“Does it count if it was the tavern keeper’s son?” Dorian asked but drank all the same.

“See?” Blackwall elbowed Cullen. “It’ll go quick.”

Cullen ran his fingers through his fringe, glancing from each eager face in turn. “You only have to drink if you’ve done whatever filthy thing it is they say?” At Blackwall’s nod, he sighed and said, “Fine, but only for one round. I really do have business to attend.”

“Oh-ho,” Sera chortled and bobbed in her seat. “I’ll get a funny one from you yet, Commander Sweaty Leathers. My turn.” She leaned across the table, narrowing her eyes as she studied Cullen’s face. “You can’t tell me they never tried something hinky in that Templar tower of yours. I mean, it even _looks_ like a dangly bit, right?”

Blackwall nodded solemnly.

Sera continued: “How about this: Never have I ever been all tied up by a lover like a roasted ham.”

“Can’t say that I have,” Cullen said lightly, turning to Blackwall, whose tankard remained firmly planted on the tabletop.

Finally, Dorian reached for his cup and threw back a drink with a flick of his wrist. “What?” he said as Sera giggled. “I was as delicious as any Wintersend spread.”

“Go on,” Blackwall said to Cullen. “You do one. We’re well on our way to getting this one—” he nodded at Dorian “—right and proper drunk.”

“Out for blood, I see. Suddenly, I regret all those times I cheated you in chess,” he said to Cullen. “Ask away, my friend.”

“Right, something I’ve never done.” A ruddy flush bloomed along Cullen’s neckline as he sat in silence, chewing his lip in thought. Maryden made it through two choruses of “Sera Was Never” before he finally said, “I’ve, er, thought of one: Never have I ever kissed a man.”

“Ah-HA!” Sera bellowed, flinging a finger in Dorian’s face and sloshing wine down her front. “He’s got you.”

“Strain your creativity coming up with that one?” Dorian simpered over the rim of his tankard. He set the cup down, shrugged his cloak closer about his shoulders, and adjusted himself into a primmer posture, his hands cupped before him like a Chantry Mother addressing her flock. “Fine, if you’re going to play dirty—Never have I ever slept with a woman.” He arched a brow at Cullen.

“Had to play that trump card sometime.” Blackwall lifted his tankard and took a single, solemn swig. “Beer was getting warm, anyway.”

“Missing out.” Sera belched.

Cullen’s tankard stood untouched on the table, a bead of condensation trailing down the side.

“ _Vishante kaffas_ , you said you were playing,” Dorian said, peering at the commander, who had suddenly ducked his head and begun picking at a splinter on the tabletop. “Take your drink; it’s only fair.” When he received no response, Dorian’s eyes widened. “Tell me you’re just not playing anymore.”

“I am playing,” Cullen said, more to his lap than to anyone at the table.

“You’re not serious,” Sera said, as if Cullen had just ordered her to march back into the Fade. She turned to Blackwall. “He’s not serious, right?”

“Maker’s balls,” Blackwall breathed, wearing the far-away expression of one just returned from a battle with a spray of gore across their cheeks. “If he can’t make it with a woman, there’s no hope for the rest of us.”

“You really have never been with a woman?” Dorian addressed Cullen with the same gentle voice used when visiting his addled grandmother at her sickbed. “Or is it just that you don’t want to drink?”

“I was with the Chantry; they never strictly forbade anything, but it was certainly frowned upon. And after I left the Templars—” he gave a limp shrug “—I had never learned how to make it happen, I suppose.” He pushed his chair away from the table, ducking their shocked stares. “As I said, I have work to do. I’ll leave you to your game.” He rose and slouched out of the tavern with his hands slipped into his pockets and his chin tucked into his chest.

“Andraste’s saggy tits,” Sera groused, “he’s worse than I thought.”

“You can’t help but feel sorry for the poor sod.” Blackwall turned to stare at the tavern door, as if expecting to find Cullen lingering there, pawing at the windowpane, alone in the cold. “It doesn’t sound like this was by choice.”

“It does not. It sounds, in fact, like he’s tried but failed to find a partner.” Dorian turned his bleary gaze to Sera and Blackwall and pronounced, with all the composure he could muster in his drunken state, “We have to help the man.”

Sera grimaced. “Not it. _You_ like the pretty boys; you sleep with him.”

“Not like that.” Dorian flicked a hand dismissively, as if wafting away a plume of smoke. “We all know he lusts after our fearless leader. What if we were to _assist_ him in getting her into bed?”

Blackwall scratched his beard contemplatively. “What, you mean get her drunk?”

“Psh, it’s easy, right?” Sera said. “Just find out what she likes to talk about, pretend you’re real interested for a bit while she natters on, then—” Sera spread her hands like one releasing a dove to the heavens “—you’re wearing her thighs as earmuffs.”

“Swine, the lot of you,” Dorian snapped. “No appreciation for the seductive arts whatsoever. I mean, yes, of _course_ we’ll get her drunk before sending her to him, but what if we gave him some tips on how to pick up women—to make her _want_ him?”

“But we don’t know how to do that,” Blackwall said.

Sera stuck out her tongue. “Speak for yourself.”

“No offense, Sera, but I’m not sure what works for you would work for someone like him. And you—” He wrinkled his nose at Dorian. “It’s just not the same for men approaching men. Me—well, let’s just say any females found in the woods outside my cabin weren’t much for romance. Bears,” he added, noticing their puzzled expressions. He chugged his tankard dry, then set it back down and stared into its depths. “We just don’t have the knowledge to teach him.”

“Ah, but we can acquire it, my friend.” A sly grin flickered across Dorian’s lips as the wicked idea blossomed in his mind. “You forget that we travel with companions—many with _experience_ , I would imagine.” He steepled his fingers under his chin and leaned across the table. “We will have to ask them for advice.”

 

***

 

“Solas,” Dorian said, baring his teeth in an attempt at a friendly grin as he approached the figure hunched over the desk. “Busy, are we?”

The elf did not even deign to look up from his reading. “I’m not certain what gave you that idea,” he muttered into the book.

“And there’s that winning charm. It’s a wonder, really, that you lived alone for so long.” Dorian leaned to peek past his gleaming dome at the crumbling pages. “Which ancient elven artifact is it you study today, I wonder?”

A cloud of dust billowed from the tome as Solas heaved its covers shut. “One of the many trampled under the boots of your people, I suspect.” He turned to Dorian wearing the expression of one who had been sipping vinegar. “Did you simply come to disturb me, or are you here for some other purpose?”

“Can’t I just want to chat?” Dorian plucked a slim book from the stacks on the elf’s desk and casually flipped it open. “A fellow mage and a scholar, no less—there’s much I should like to ask you about.” He peered at the page intently for a moment, not wanting to give Solas the satisfaction of admitting he couldn’t read the squiggly runes.

Solas settled back in his chair, his hands folded beneath his chin, regarding Dorian coolly. “You come in person rather than sending a slave with a letter. I must admit, I am surprised.”

Dorian ground his teeth and swallowed his ire. “Fine,” he said, tossing the book aside onto the mess of parchment. “We’re both smart men; I’ll drop the pretense. I need your help.”

Surprise flickered across Solas’s features for just a moment before he smoothed his expression. “Then I’ll try to assist, depending on what it is you need,” he said, rising from his seat and pacing the room with his hands folded neatly behind his back. “Though if this regards the Inquisitor and her Mark, I still do not know enough to help you.”

“Not exactly,” Dorian said hesitantly, “though the question pertains to her, in a way.” He watched the elf shuffle back and forth, sidestepping piles of molted feathers and raven shit. Dorian was reminded of one of his lecturers in the academy—the one boys had always tried to trip in the hallways. Finally, he summoned the courage to continue: “Look, I’m not sure how else to word this: were you… _alone_ all that time you lived in the woods?”

Solas turned to him. “No,” he said simply. “I had many companions.”

“Oh,” Dorian said, taken aback momentarily. “Even ‘frumpy recluse’ has a market, I suppose. How did you even — er, come across all of them?”

Solas began to pace again, his chest thrown out and his nose turned toward the ravens’ cages hung on the ceiling high above. “We met beneath the shadows of a winding spire,” he began, “and in the fields of ancient battles. They spoke to me in a secret language, calling for the kinship of wisdom after their long silence. Diligence found me beneath an old oak tree, dreaming—”

“Hold a moment.” Dorian pinched the bridge of the nose, trying to stifle the sudden throb of pain there. “Unless ‘Diligence’ is some old Anders name I’ve never heard—”

“A spirit,” Solas snapped, “and my friend.”

“I’ll never forgive Blackwall for winning this coin toss,” Dorian muttered to himself. “Listen,” he said to the elf, “I’m simply _ecstatic_ you found someone willing to tolerate you, though I’m not surprised you had to leave the realm of reality to do it. My concern has more to do with _actual_ women—you know, relationships with corporeal bodies and other such sticky matters? Do you have any idea what I speak of?”

“I do now,” Solas sniffed, “though I’m not sure why you would come to me with such questions.”

“Because there must be something in here—” Dorian gestured frantically towards the teetering stack of books and sprawled parchments “—about how to bed someone, some advice I may pass along to a man in the direst of need. Surely, even the ancients wrote steamy passages about heaving bosoms, sometimes.”

Solas glowered at him a moment, then sighed. “Many such works have been translated, yes.”

“Then tell me—just one thing—and I’ll leave you be, I promise.” When Solas did not protest, he continued: “What would you suggest a friend of mine do to woo a woman?”

Solas tilted his head in thought. “One idea comes to mind,” he said slowly. “An ancient practice, passed down through the ages.” He peered intently at Dorian. “Tell him to give her _manise_ ,” he said with a nod.

Dorian frowned. “I’ve not heard that term. What is that, an elven love-totem of some sort?”

Solas shook his head and slumped in his seat behind his desk again. “No,” he said lightly, “just rum. I was wild in my youth,” he added with a shrug.

 

***

 

“But he’s just a boy.” Blackwall’s lip curled as he watched Cole skip along the stone wall along the edge of the bailey. “I can’t ask him about these things. What would he know about girls? I don’t think he’s even seen a pigtail, let alone pulled one.”

“Well, you don’t have to be crass about it. Just ask him what the Inquisitor likes or feels—some insight Cullen can use.” Dorian shoved him toward the boy. “Besides, I already had the pleasure of speaking to our other Fade-addled friend earlier this week. It’s your turn.”

“Fine.” Blackwall squared his shoulders and stalked across the bailey. “Cole,” he called up to where the boy perched on the wall, “can you come down here a minute? I, er, wanted to talk.”

Cole stopped humming and peered down at him from beneath the brim of his hat. “Nerves singed, shaking like you face a foe across a field of battle. It was a sweet song, unbroken. It frightens you, reminds you of what you stole.”

“Oh, for—” Blackwall glanced helplessly back at Dorian, who folded his arms across his chest and shook his head. He turned back to the boy. “Stop with the mind-reading nonsense. I just want to have a chat with you, man-to—well, whatever you are.”

“A man, I think. I would look funny in the things Josephine wears.” Cole crouched and climbed down the stones to the lower level where Blackwall stood. “You’re trying to help him. I want to help him, too.”

Blackwall clapped his hands together. “Right, so you already know what I’m going to ask about. That’s easier, then.”

Cole’s head lolled back against his shoulders as he stared dreamily at the clouds drifting overhead. “Soft, scented gently of lilies in the bay: a crow’s wing against his chest. He wants to feel it between his fingers as he kisses her.”

The swell of hope in Blackwall’s chest began to deflate. “Yeah, the Inquisitor’s got hair, but—”

“Tongue tied, tumbling, tripped by such simple truths. He keeps another vigil, sworn to silence. She has to be bigger than he is.”

“Okay, you’ve got the concept.” Blackwall balled his fists at his sides. “But I need to ask you about _her_ , not him. The Inquisitor.”

Cole ducked his head and wrung his hands like a scolded child. “I — can’t hear her the same as the others. The Mark sings so loudly, but it’s wrong.”

“You must know something about her,” Blackwall said, a shrill note of desperation creeping in his voice. “Something that she likes or really wants—you know, something secret, that she’s never mentioned before. The Commander wants to — to impress her with it, like men do to court a lady. Do you understand at all?”

Cole stared at him for a moment, eyes glazed. “Yes,” he said finally.

Blackwall gestured impatiently. “And?”

Cole screwed up his face as if he were about to sneeze. “Thirteen,” he drawled, squinting at the sky, “laid crosswise. The flame won’t touch that way.”

“Thirteen what?”

Cole shrugged. “Like her brothers always taught her.”

Blackwall raked his fingers through his hair and turned his back on the boy. “Maker, this is—I can’t—”

“You wonder if your hands will fit around Dorian’s neck,” Cole scolded him. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“Then just—” Blackwall closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, forcing himself to turn back to the boy with his teeth bared in a smile. “Let me try this in another way. You know those thoughts you’ve heard from the Commander—the ones where his heart beats very fast and his chest feels like it just might burst?”

“Yes.”

“That — _feeling_ is what he wants the Inquisitor to feel. That, er, excitement.” His cheeks prickled as they flushed.

“Why is your skin so red?” Cole asked, peering at him curiously. “Have you been to the Ambassador’s office again?”

“Never mind that. Look, Cullen wants to give something—a gift—to the Inquisitor to make her feel, er, _excited_ , happy. Just tell me: Do you know what makes her feel that way?”

“Snow on First Day morning,” Cole stated with a smile.

“I give up.” Blackwall threw up his hands and wheeled around on his heel. “Dorian,” he bellowed across the yard, “I’m going to get a beer.”

 

***

 

Dorian entered the solar, brandishing a bottle of wine before him as one would a shield. “Vivienne,” he said with forced cheerfulness. “I come bearing a gift.”

Vivienne looked up from her meal. Her fingers seized momentarily around the handle of her fork, as if considering its weight and capacity to stab. “Hello, darling,” she said, laying down her utensils and patting her lips with her napkin. “To what do I owe this great pleasure? It is not my name day.”

“For no other reason than to show my great esteem for such an accomplished mage as yourself. Golden Scythe,” he said, holding the bottle out to her.

“What year?”

Dorian blinked absently at her. “Year?” He spun the bottle around and squinted at the label. He hadn’t thought to ask when Sera nicked it from the kitchens. “Do they say that on here? I’m more of a brandy man, myself. Ah, 9:39,” he proclaimed with a flourish. “A fine vintage.”

“I shall take your word for it.” She waved a hand toward the sideboard. “You may put it with the others.”

Dorian glanced at the array of bottles, jugs, and flasks lining the table, many with wilted flowers and love notes still affixed, filmed in dust, their seals unbroken. “Quite popular with the courtiers, I see. We’ll just have this now, then, shall we?” He flumped into the seat across from the First Enchanter and magicked the cork free with a flick of his hand.

“My dear, it is considered ill-bred to imbibe with one’s breakfast.”

Dorian scoffed. “Maybe here it is. In Tevinter, only the most withered old prunes order juice with their eggs.”

“And who would I be to gainsay such an esteemed custom,” she sneered as Dorian sloshed two cups full to the rim. “Is there something you need from me? As you know, I’m very busy, my dear.”

“You’re breakfasting at noon.”

Vivienne stared at him.

“An irrelevant detail; we’ll move past that.” Dorian took a sip from his glass in the most genteel fashion he could muster, though the acrid swill threatened to pucker his entire face. “Have I mentioned that you look lovely today? Cold—” he nodded toward the window of bare flesh at her chest “—but lovely.”

“Dorian, my dear, you would be a poor player of The Game; your intent is all but written upon your face. If you must ask a question of me, simply speak it.”

“Well, if you insist.” He set aside his drained glass and snatched up Vivienne’s untouched one. “I would like to learn more about Orlesian courtship.”

“You?” Vivienne’s eyebrows lifted so high, they would’ve touched her hairline if she’d still had one. “A much more subtle art than you are accustomed to, I’m sure. Why, there is a weed sprouting the loveliest little flowers in a ditch just outside the gate. You could fashion them into a bouquet for one of your coarse friends. _That_ is better suited to your affairs than the Orlesian style, my dear.”

Dorian ground his teeth until they creaked. “Ah, yes, the unknowable art of becoming a courtier’s whore is lost on a peasant like me,” he sneered. “Tell me, what did it take for your dusty old duke to get you into bed: gold, or just the promise of it?”

Vivienne flung her napkin atop her half-finished meal. “A droll little man,” she said, rising and striding languidly to the door. “As much as I enjoy your wit, I’m afraid I must ask to leave.” She cracked the door and leaned through the gap to call outside: “Michel? Will you come here, darling? You have business to attend.” A burly man piled in plate and maille stomped in after her and glowered at Dorian.

“No need to call your guards,” Dorian snapped, but the man seized him by the collar, yanked him to his feet, and hustled him out the door before he could protest further.

“Best of luck in your pursuits,” Vivienne’s voice floated down the hallway after him.

Blackwall emerged from the shadowy nook where he had stationed himself as a watchman of sorts. “Well?” he asked, helping Dorian to his feet from where he had been roughly deposited on the floor by the guard. “What did you learn from Madame Vivienne?”

“Nothing at all,” Dorian said, rearranging his rumpled cape, “but it was worth it.”

 

***

 

Blackwall swore quietly under his breath, raked his fingers through his beard, and scrubbed at the grease stain on the front of his gambeson with a corner of his sleeve. Slightly hazier, but still noticeable. He’d just have to try to pass it off as darkspawn blood again, he supposed.

He cleared his throat and stepped into the door frame. Cassandra sat with her legs folded under her on the end of her bed, a book spread across her lap, her back to him. She flipped a page—had obviously not heard him. He cleared his throat again. “Lady Seeker,” he said finally, taking a single tentative step into the tidy space.

She startled and whirled to face him, snapping her book shut as she turned. “Warden Blackwall,” she said coolly.

His head swam. “Er, hullo.” Maker be damned, it smelled of saddle oil and sweat in here, but of some pleasant spice and other feminine mysteries, too. “Fancy meeting you here,” he finished lamely.

Her lip curled. “It is my room.”

“So it is.” His eyes darted about the tidy quarters: the armor with the lidless eye shining atop its stand, the formal uniform rumpled in the corner where she had stripped it off after the ball, the red scarf draped over the window to dim the light. “Do you mind?” He gestured towards a chair across from the bed with a sword propped upright against the arm.

“I—” She grunted in disgust as Blackwall moved aside the blade and flopped into the seat. “See that your boots do not track more dirt in. The Commander has brought in enough as it is.” Her jaw flared as she ground her teeth, trying to read his intention from his face. “Why have you come?” she finally asked.

Blackwall wondered if it were possible to sweat through three straight layers of wool. “I, er, just wanted to discuss that duck and slice move you pulled off at practice this morning,” he said. “It was really something.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What has the dwarf done this time?”

“Nothing,” he said, throwing his hands up before him as if to ward off a blow. “Well, that I know of.”

“Then I do not wish to chat.” She yanked open her book hard enough to crack the spine and fixed her eyes on the page.

“You’re busy enough with other matters; I understand. You can demonstrate it when we spar tomorrow.” He heaved himself to his feet, making as if to leave, but lingered by the foot of the bed, peering over her shoulder at the book. “I liked the chapter with the elf maiden Merilyn the best,” he said, hoping he sounded convincingly casual.

Cassandra swiveled her head up toward him. “ _You_ read _Swords and Shields_?”

“Here and there,” he lied. He shrugged and glanced at the ceiling, trying to recall the rest of the summary Dorian had fed him that morning. “Last bit I got to was the one with the, er, bad…thing.”

“Her enchanted mirror!” Cassandra gasped.

“Right, that.” Blackwall bobbed his head. “Just riveting.”

“I must admit, I have been _dying_ to discuss it with someone,” she said, her face alight with an incredulous smile. “When she was abducted from her alienage by slavers, oh….” She stared off in the distance a moment, her eyes misty. “Have you read the latest chapter?” she asked. “What did you think of the rogue mage Anderson?”

Blackwall chewed the insides of his cheeks, pretending to be lost in thought. Dorian had neglected to tell him about that part. “Misunderstood?” he finally ventured.

“I had not thought of it that way,” Cassandra said, nodding slowly, “but I suppose he _did_ nurse Merilyn back to health after she escaped. I will have to reread it.” Blackwall was rattled when he realized she was smiling at him. “Thank you for your insight. It is nice to discuss these things with a fellow fan.”

“It’s, er, no trouble.” He cringed as he sank back into the chair but was relieved to find she did not bark at him to leave again. “Lady Seeker,” he said hesitantly, “can I ask you something about these stories?”

She peered at him. “You may,” she said.

“See, the thing is, you’re a woman—”

“Kind of you to remind me.”

“—so I’d like to know your opinion of the — the _tactics_ the men use in these things.”

“Tactics?” Cassandra flipped over her book and scanned the summary on the back. “There were not so many combat scenes in this one, were there?”

“No, I mean the — the _romance_. It’s for a friend of mine,” he added quickly at Cassandra’s glare. “He’s desperately…well, desperate. He’d like to know if the things in here—” he reached over and tapped the book’s leather cover “—are really the way to win a lady’s heart. In your esteemed opinion,” he added with what he hoped was a winning smile.

After a moment of tense silence, Cassandra’s frown melted into an expression of dreamy delight. “Oh, yes,” she breathed. “Though this is not the only one.” She sprang to her feet and rounded the bed so quickly she nearly clipped Blackwall’s chin with her fists. “Have you read _The Magister Lord’s Secret Chantry Lover_?” she asked as she crossed to her nightstand, pulled open the drawer, and began rifling through the contents.

“I-I can’t say that I have.”

“Strange. I think you would like it, being a fan of _Swords and_ —ah!” She plucked a tattered novel from the drawer and brandished it at Blackwall. “This—” she shuffled over and pressed the book into his hands “—this one you should read if you would like to know what is true romance.”

“ _Claimed by the Avvar Barbarian_ ,” he read the title aloud. On the cover, a man in a loincloth clutched a swooning elf to his well-muscled chest, though it seemed he had been slathered in shining oil rather than the traditional paint of the clans. He turned the book over to inspect the battered leather and flipped the covers apart. “Why is your copy so dog-eared?” he asked.

Cassandra flushed. “It must have been damaged in my pack, that is all.” She stood before him, wringing her hands and worrying her lip. “And when you are finished with that,” she added tentatively, “there are…other endings to the tale you may like to read. By my own hand.”

Blackwall blinked, his mind struggling to churn such statements into coherent thoughts. “You mean to say you wrote stories about—” he squinted at the author’s name emblazoned across the cover, some inscrutable dwarven jumble “—this guy’s characters?”

“Someone had to do to it!” Cassandra cried, flinging her arms aside in frustration. “The ending was not right; the romance, it was not enough; the exiled lord was supposed to come back to marry her in the—” Realizing Blackwall was staring blankly at her, her sudden rage fled and her shoulders sagged. “You will understand once you read them. Here,” she said, bending to fetch her satchel from under the bed, “I have two drafts I have been working on just—”

“No!” Blackwall cried, launching to his feet and shouldering past her toward the exit. “I mean, thank you, but this is enough for now, Seeker. Maker,” he added under his breath as he slammed the door behind him and braced his back against it, “this is more than enough.”

 

***

 

“Varric,” Dorian said, laying out a pair of swords, “you must be good with women.”

Varric scoffed as he flipped down his hand: four crowns. “If you think you’ll win this back with flattery—” he hugged the pile of coins across the table to him “—you’re sadly mistaken, Sparkler.”

Dorian bit back a curse. He had meant to lose a few hands to put the dwarf in a good mood—but not _that_ good. “No, no,” he said airily, as if he weren’t wondering how he was going to cover his tab this evening at the tavern. “I truly am just curious. An illustrious author—” he plucked the deck from the table and cut it in two “—you must have been popular at the Winter Palace.”

“Don’t let my dashing good looks fool you,” Varric said. “I’m not really the womanizing sort.” He slipped three cards into his hand. “Besides, Bianca is more than enough for me.”

Dorian’s lip curled in disgust. “I’m honestly not sure how to respond to that,” he said, remembering the nights Varric had spent fixed by the fire, tenderly swiping a rag along the thing’s handle. He shook his head to dispel the image. “All right, so you’re not the type to sleep around—” he eyed the dwarf over the top of his cards “—but you and Hawke, then, surely….”

Varric huffed a laugh and tossed a coin into the pot. “Maybe if I wanted a hole punched through my chest. Yeah,” he said, noticing Dorian’s puzzled expression, “her ex-boyfriend? It’s kind of his thing.”

Dorian blinked, watching the dwarf casually rearrange his hand, as if he had merely commented on the pleasant spring weather. “There is something _sincerely_ wrong with Kirkwall,” he finally said.

“Yeah,” Varric said with a misty smile. “There really is.”

Dorian threw down his hand—it had been shit, anyway. “In that case,” he said, “you just might be crazy enough to understand this.” He leaned across the table. “We—that is, Blackwall and I—have been trying to teach one of our comrades how to win his heart’s desire: _Trevelyan_ ,” he whispered with sinful relish.

Varric nodded thoughtfully. “Boy chases girl, girl saves the world with a weird green hole in her hand, they wind up happily ever after in the end. Isn’t that how all the best love stories go?” Varric palmed his cards against the deck and began to shuffle them. “So who is this idiot chasing the Herald? Wait,” he added with a worried glance, “don’t tell me it’s the kid. I _told_ him to stop looking for some hidden meaning in the way she tightens up the straps on his pack.”

Dorian hadn’t known it was possible to feel so bafflingly nauseated all at once, yet here he was. “No, not Cole,” he said after swallowing bile. “I’m afraid that it’s someone entirely more hopeless than our ghoulish little schoolboy.”

“Really?” Varric set aside the cards and leaned back in his seat, steepling his fingers in his lap, one eyebrow quirked. “Just how bad are we talking here?”

“How could I even begin to describe the poor wretch?” Dorian tapped his chin in thought. “A word come to mind: cloistered.”

Varric sucked in a breath. “I knew a guy like that once,” he said with a solemn shake of his head. “Shit.”

 _“_ Don’t sound so aggrieved just yet. _You_ are our dear Commander’s last hope, my hirsute little friend.”

Varric’s face split in a hearty guffaw. “Curly?” he chortled. “What help could he need with hair like his? Granted, it’s all on his head,” he said, running his fingers through the forest of curls on his chest, “but I think you’re asking the wrong man, Sparkler.”

“You don’t seem to understand the dire nature of the situation, dwarf. He’s a—” Dorian cupped a hand around his lips “— _virgin_.” Despite his whisper, the word seemed to clatter through Skyhold’s hall like a crack of thunder. A noblewoman lingering by the fire dropped her fan with a shuddering shriek; her masked partner shot a scandalized glare in the mage’s direction.

Varric’s smile wilted. “You’re not just pulling my chain, are you?” At Dorian’s somber frown, he sighed and said, “All right, I’ve got something that might point Curly in the right direction. _But—_ ” he chopped his hand against the tabletop hard enough to make the stack of cards jump “—only because this is a real emergency. You can’t tell anyone about what I’m about to show you.”

“You can trust me,” Dorian said, quickly palming the five face cards he’d had hidden up his sleeve and slipping them back into the deck when the dwarf turned away.

He rose and followed Varric as he stumped out of the hall, through Solas’s tower (“Come to boast of your success using my suggestions?” the elf asked as they passed, but Dorian waved at him for silence), and up the stairs to the library.

“You think I haven’t already searched these for ideas?” Dorian asked, folding his arms across his chest as Varric ran a finger along the spines, counting the number of books from the end of the shelf. “Barring a few treatises on how to welcome the Maker wholly into your soul, there’s nothing filthy in here.”

“Fifty-one, fifty-two—and that should do it.” Varric’s finger stopped on a crumbling tome bound in thick brown leather that looked like it had been cured from a cow’s withered backside. He tipped it from the shelf and hefted it over to Dorian. “Take this.”

 _“Brother Janssen’s Guide to the Arcane Art of Herb Cultivation, or A Felandris Enthusiast’s Flights of Fancy_ ,” Dorian read from the cover. “Varric, what am I to do with this nonsense?” He looked up and realized he addressed not the dwarf but his ass: Varric was bent over, digging shoulder-deep into the empty space left by the tome.

“Not that, it’s—aha, right here.” He emerged with a bundle of dusty parchment tied together with twine clutched in his fist and shook it triumphantly, raining dust down upon his head. “Figured these’d be safe hidden behind there. Here—” he flourished the roll of parchment as he passed it to Dorian “—the secret to Curly’s success.”

Dorian unfurled the topmost parchment and read the spiraled lettering across the top: “ _The Randy Dowager Quarterly_. I’m sure I’ve seen the Spymaster lining the crows’ cages with this. Varric—” he leaned out from behind the scroll to peer at the dwarf “—you mean to tell me _you_ wrote for this rag?”

“I was an _editor_ ,” Varric said, puffing his chest out with all the dignity he could muster. “I’ll have you know, it was even worse before I cleaned it up. No sense of plot or pacing, fists written into places where they would never—well, never mind.” He cleared his throat and dismissed that thought with a shake of his head. “Look, I know one of the authors, and she really knows her stuff. I mean, _really_ knows her stuff. There’s not a booty in all Thedas that our pirate captain Isabella couldn’t plunder.”

Dorian’s upper lip curled ever closer to his nose as he scanned the page. “I’m not so certain I believe you; this is just wretched, Varric.” He turned to a parchment with the title ‘Rapid Seduction for No-Nonsense Noblewomen’ emblazoned across the upper margin. “‘Pick-up lines guaranteed to’—Divine preserve us—‘ _send women into frothy paroxysms of lust_ ,’” he read. He folded the page and shook his head at the dwarf, aghast. “You cannot be serious.”

“Helped out an angsty blond friend of ours back in Kirkwall,” Varric said. “Should do Curly some good, too.”

Dorian fixed a glare on the dwarf. When Varric merely shrugged, he held the page before him like a crier with a kingly missive and read one of the pick-up lines aloud: “‘Are you a flaming rodent? Because you’re _nugging_ hot.’”

“Not everything’s a masterpiece,” Varric sniffed, then sighed, his shoulders slumping. “The things you publish for beer money,” he muttered, shouldering past Dorian and shaking his head.

 

***

 

“ _You_ go talk to him,” Dorian said with a huff. “He reeks of cabbage and old feet.”

“Why me?” Sera sneered. “I never said I was helping the wanking dictator get someone between the sheets.”

“We’ve asked all the others,” Blackwall grumbled, his eyes glassy in the dim light—either drunk or crying, or maybe both. “Maker, don’t make me do it again.”

Sera arched out of her seat and peered across the tavern to where the Iron Bull sat alone, nursing a tankard as big as a cauldron. “What am I even supposed to say? How do you just, you know, walk up to someone, throw down a ‘how about your fun bits,’ and go on with your day? This is weird. You—” she pointed at Dorian and Blackwall in turn “—are weird.”

“It isn’t weird, it’s—” Dorian tsked “—it’s _philanthropy_. We’re trying to support a good cause.”

“By asking everyone how they get one off with someone?”

Blackwall shrugged.

Sera shook her head. “Still not doing it.”

“What if I said—” Dorian palmed a coin onto the table and slid it across the slats “—your next drink’s on me?”

“You think I’m as easy as all that?” Sera eyed the silver a moment, then pounced upon it. “All right, fine, you git. But I’m getting that drink first—and _no_ details about the nethers.”

After fetching another glass of red at the bar, Sera stalked over to Bull’s table and flopped into the seat across from him.

“Hey, Sera,” Bull said, flashing her a bleary smile over the lip of his tankard. “What’s going on?”

Sera blew her mussed bangs from her eyes. “Dorian wants to know how to turn you on or summat,” she blurted, “but don’t actually, you know, tell me.”

Bull’s brow crept up in surprise. “Does he now?” His chair groaned as he leaned to catch a glimpse of the mage across the crowded tavern.

“Yeah, it’s whatever. I think it’s been a while for him; he’s gone all funny.” Sera kicked a foot up on the table. “Just let me sit here a bit and pretend, and keep your mouth shut if he asks about it, yeah?” She tilted her head side-to-side to some secret tune as she slurped at her drink.

“As silent as a Saarebas,” Bull said absently, watching Dorian with a peculiar smile.

 

***

 

Cullen ducked into the tavern and stalked across the taproom with a dark frown slashed across his face. “You summoned me?” he panted as he drew up to their table.

“Ah, Commander,” Dorian said, gesturing to the empty chair across with a grand sweep of his arm. “Please have a seat.”

Cullen’s eyes flashed toward the chair, lingered on Blackwall’s guilty slouch, then knifed back to Dorian. “You said that I should come at once.” He brandished the parchment in Dorian’s face and pointed to the ‘URGENT’ scrawled across the bottom in lurid red ink, with three dark slashes underneath for emphasis. “You said it was an emergency.”

“So I did.” Dorian blew the parchment away from his nose. “And so it is. It concerns our dear Inquisitor.”

“Oh.” Cullen sank into the chair as if his knees had given out from beneath him. “Is she all right?”

“Good man.” Dorian snapped at a passing waitress and pointed to Cullen; she set a fresh drink in front of him despite his protests. “She’ll be much better after our discussion, I should think.”

Cullen’s fist flexed atop the table as if he longed to draw his sword from his side. “What’s happened to her?” he asked.

Blackwall leaned in over the man’s plated shoulder and muttered, “You’re, er, going to want that drink.”

Cullen turned a crazed stare on the Warden. “Maker preserve me,” he breathed. “I knew allowing her to travel to the Wastes unaccompanied was a mistake.”

“What my boorish compatriot here means to say—” Dorian glared at Blackwall before turning back to Cullen with a simper “—is that you must brace yourself for the immense wisdom we are going to impart to you tonight. We don’t pass on such powers lightly.”

Cullen glanced over his shoulder, as if he were expecting Sera to jump out from behind him and screech that this whole thing had been a prank. “So Evelyn is unhurt?”

“What? Yes, of course, she’s fine.” Dorian waved a hand dismissively. “We’ve called you here tonight,” he continued with dramatic resonance, “to teach you the art of seduction.”

“Getting in their heads,” Blackwall said, tapping his temple.

Cullen blinked at them.

Dorian’s pride deflated slightly in the face of Cullen’s confusion. “We collected tips for you,” he said, “to help you seduce the Inquisitor.”

“To fix your — you know, _situation_ ,” Blackwall whispered.

“Oh!” Cullen’s face flooded as red as the coals in the hearth. “That? That, er — well, that won’t be — _strictly_ — necessary.”

It was Dorian’s turn to stare at him in confusion. “What do you mean?” he finally asked. “You’re — you’re a virgin.”

Cullen snatched up the untouched tankard before him and gulped down a drink. When he lowered his cup, he wore a lopsided grin. “Not since the Winter Palace,” he said.

“Not since—” Even the very corners of Dorian’s moustache drooped in disappointment. “So you’ve slept with our fearless leader already, then? Without our help?” Dorian scoffed and shook his head. “Congratulations are in order for breaking your hermetic seal, I suppose. But how in Andraste’s name did you even manage _that_?”

Cullen grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, she, er, took care of most of it. She knows I’m not very good at those sorts of things, apparently.” His gaze drifted to the ceiling, a gentle smile fluttering across his lips, as if conjuring an image of some secret pleasure. “One night, when we were alone in the garden, she approached me and asked if the Chantry had made me take a vow of celibacy. When I said that it hadn’t, one thing just sort of led to another, and—”

“Wait.” Blackwall pounded his fist to the table. “That line _worked_?”

Cullen shrugged.

“Maker,” Blackwall muttered darkly, “women have it easy.”

“ _Vishante kaffas_ ,” Dorian spat. He squeezed his eyes shut and massaged his temples. “All our effort, and _she_ just sweeps you off your feet in the end. All this—wasted.”

“The Seeker keeps leaving dirty books outside my door,” Blackwall grumbled, “so there’s something, I guess.”

Cullen’s face lit up with pleasure—though whether from sharing his conquest or at witnessing their misery, Dorian wasn’t quite sure. “Perhaps we’ll stick to chess rather than your bar games from now on?” he said and laughed as he left them to their sullen cups.

 

***

 

“It’s just annoying,” Dorian said, sullenly tracing circles in the condensation beaded on his tankard with a fingertip. “We worked so hard gathering advice for the Commander and—boom, the Inquisitor just falls right at his feet.” He sighed. “After all that, as useless as a dwarf in the Magisterium.”

“Aw, come on, Dorian,” Bull said, clapping a hand on his shoulder hard enough to shatter a boulder. “You must’ve gotten something out of the crew. Some pick-up lines, maybe? You could still use ‘em, even if Cullen doesn’t need it anymore.”

Dorian narrowed his eyes at the meaty fingers resting near his neck; Bull had been suspiciously kind as of late. “I’m not so sure,” he said, shrugging off his touch. “I think the ones we learned only work when you’re tall, blond, and muscled like he is.”

“Really?” Bull sat back and folded his arms. “Hit me with something, then.”

“What?” Dorian scoffed. “I just said—”

“You just said none of those lines would work unless you were Cullen. You’ve got the ‘muscled’ part down—” his eyes flitted to the crescent of bare chest visible under Dorian’s mantle “—so let’s see if you can pull them off without the rest.”

“‘Without the rest?’ As if I would need—” Dorian ground his jaw shut, not wanting to give Bull the satisfaction of his indignation. “It was all just foolish nonsense,” he said through his teeth. “I’d rather not waste more of my time on it.”

“You’ll need to up your confidence if you’re ever going to get them work.” Bull scooted closer and nudged him with his elbow. “Come on, Dorian, it’ll be fun. Gimme one.”

Dorian pretended he could not feel Bull’s thigh bump against his under the table. “I’m not sure why you’re pestering me about it. If you want to hear these lines so desperately, you can go ask all of them yourself.”

“But—” Bull’s eyes glimmered in the firelight as he leaned in close “—I want to hear it from _you_.”

Dorian glanced at Bull, trying to hide his intrigue, ashamed of the flush that prickled his cheeks. “Well, if you’re so desperate for the attention,” he said slowly, “I suppose I could humor you.” His gaze drifted to the barman across the tavern, the taps and stills lined there, and he thought of Solas’s most learned advice. “But first things first,” he said, “why don’t we have another drink? Rum, perhaps?”

“Now you’re talking!” Bull beckoned to a passing serving girl and positively bellowed: “Two rums—well’s good—and make them doubles.” The girl returned with two filmy glasses filled to the brim; Bull sucked his down in two chugs. He slammed his empty upon the table and raked his knuckles along his sternum. “Damn,” he said, “that’s rough.”

Dorian tipped a sip of the stuff to his lips and cringed. “Are you certain they haven’t just served us varnish?”

“Feels _good_ , though, doesn’t it?”

“If you enjoy the sensation of pickling your innards, I suppose,” Dorian said, grimacing through another swallow, though he couldn’t deny the muzzy warmth spiraling in his gut and spreading to his limbs. Perhaps the wizened egg was on to something.

“Now—” Bull scooted his chair closer “—let’s hear one of those lines.”

“The filth that dwarf came up with, it’s beneath even _you_ , Bull,” Dorian said, then rolled his eyes. “Oh, all right, if you insist.” He cleared his throat and dropped his voice into a theatrically lascivious growl: “How about we go to Lowtown together, if you know what I mean?”

Bull rocked back and boomed a laugh into the rafters. “Oh-ho-ho, that one’s _dirty._ ”

“Is it?” Dorian asked. “Is it in Fereldan? The dwarf insisted they have a great bar there.”

Bull’s face scrunched up for a moment’s consideration. “I dunno if it matters.”

“To those of us with a more discerning taste, it does.” Dorian flitted a wink over the rim of his glass as he finished his whiskey and was pleased to see that even Qunari could blush. He smoothed away the liquor beaded at corners of his mouth. “Ah,” he said, “there was another, one you’ll appreciate.” He cleared his throat. “Are you wearing Fade pants?” he asked with a saucy flick of his head. “Because I’m inside them every night in my dreams.”

Bull laughed and clapped a hand to Dorian’s thigh—and lingered there, leaning close enough to singe Dorian’s mustache with the liquor fumes on his breath. “I’m gonna have to try that one,” he said.

Dorian swallowed thickly. “You hate the Fade,” he said weakly.

“I’d hate it a whole lot less if it got me laid. Go on, then—” Bull gave his leg a gentle shake “—give me your worst one. I want to see you get through it without laughing.”

Dorian shook his head, as if to scatter the fog from his mind. He found he had been drifting absently into Bull’s embrace. “Let me think,” he murmured, his mouth strangely dry despite the drink. “There was one—something about Stonefisting, but I can’t quite remember how it went now.” Dorian looked to the ceiling and narrowed his eyes, trying to picture the smudged pages of the _Randy Dowager_ Varric had bestowed upon him. “Ah,” he said, “my favorite.” He narrowed his eyes at Bull in what he hoped was a seductive leer rather than a drunken slouch. “Magic isn’t the only thing meant to serve man,” he purred. “Come back to mine tonight, and I’ll serve you.”

Bull huffed out a heavy breath. “Damn,” he growled, kneading Dorian’s flesh with some urgency. “That one’s good.”

“This is doing it for you, truly?” Dorian said lightly, though he could no longer ignore the flame kindled in his own groin.

“Not gonna lie.” Bull shrugged. “I’m an easy guy.”

“What an embarrassment,” Dorian said with an impetuous tilt of his head that made his vision smear in a drunken haze. “I haven’t even used the best line yet.”

“What’s that?” Bull said, watching Dorian’s lips intently.

“Are you certain you can bear it?”

Bull’s eye met Dorian’s gaze, smoldering in the guttering candlelight. “I am if you are,” he said, and Dorian nodded once, gently.

“You know,” he murmured as Bull’s face swooped in inches from his own, “the Chantry doesn’t make them take a vow of celibacy.”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he breathed and found Bull’s mouth with his own.


End file.
